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Count Dracula/Universal
Count Dracula is the title character and primary antagonist of the film Dracula based Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel of the same name. He is described as an archetypal vampire. Biography 'Dracula, Drácula' Renfield is a solicitor on his way to the Castle belonging to Count Dracula in Transylvania on a business matter. The people in the local village are fearful that vampires inhabit the castle and warn Renfield not to go there. Renfield refuses to stay at the local inn and asks the driver of the carriage that brought him to the village to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper's wife gives Renfield a crucifix for protection before he leaves. He is driven to the castle by Dracula's coach, with Dracula himself disguised as the driver. During the trip, Renfield sticks his head out the window to ask the driver to slow down, but is startled to see that the driver has disappeared, and a bat is leading the horses. Renfield enters the castle welcomed by the charming but eccentric Count, who unbeknownst to Renfield, is a true vampire. They discuss Dracula's intention to lease Carfax Abbey in London, where he intends to travel the next day. Dracula then leaves and hypnotizes Renfield into opening a window. He faints as a bat appears and Dracula's three wives suddenly appear and start to close in on him. Dracula then arrives and waves them away before he attacks Renfield himself. Aboard the schooner Vesta, bound for England, Renfield is now a raving lunatic slave to Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship's crew. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered to be the only living person in it; the captain is lashed on the wheel and none of the ship’s crew is discovered. Renfield is sent to Dr. Seward’s sanatorium which is adjoined with Carfax Abbey. Some nights later at a London theatre, Dracula meets Dr. Seward, who is with a group in a box seat area. Seward introduces his daughter Mina, her fiancé John Harker, and the family friend Lucy Weston. Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, after Lucy falls asleep in bed, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered. Renfield has become obsessed with eating flies and spiders and Professor Van Helsing analyzes Renfield's blood and discovers his obsession. He starts talking about vampires, and that afternoon chats with Renfield, who begs Dr. Seward to send him away, because his nightly cries may disturb Mina’s dreams. When Dracula awakes and calls Renfield with wolf howling, Renfield is disturbed by Van Helsing showing him a branch of wolfbane. Van Helsing says its a plant used for protection from vampires. Dracula visits Mina, asleep in her bedroom, and bites her, leaving neck marks similar to those on Lucy. The next evening, Mina tells of a dream in which she was visited by stranger with 'red eyes and a white, livid face'. Then, Dracula enters for a night's visit and Van Helsing and Harker notice that Dracula does not have a reflection in a mirror. When Van Helsing shows this "most amazing phenomenon" to Dracula, he reacts violently, smashes the mirror and leaves. Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is the vampire behind the recent tragedies. Meanwhile, Mina leaves her room and runs to Dracula in the garden, where he wraps his cape around her and attacks her. She is found moments later by the mouse maid and Seward, Van Helsing, and Harker retrieve her, while Dracula hides behind a tree. Dracula enters the Seward parlour and talks with Van Helsing. Dracula states that because he has fused his blood with Mina's, she now belongs to him. Van Helsing swears revenge by excavating Carfax Abbey and finding the coffin where he sleeps; he will then thrust a stake through his heart. Dracula tries to hypnotize Van Helsing, but without success. Van Helsing shows a crucifix to the vampire and Dracula turns away and flees the house. Harker visits Mina on a terrace, and Mina speaks of how much she loves "nights and fogs". Harker notices Mina’s changes, not realizing that she is slowly transforming into a vampire. A bat (Dracula) flies above them and squeaks to Mina. She then tries to attack Harker but Van Helsing and Dr. Seward arrive just in time to save him. Mina confesses what Dracula has done to her, and tries to tell Harker that their love is finished. Later that night, Dracula hypnotizes Nurse Briggs into removing the wolfbane wreath from Mina's neck and opening the windows so he can enter. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield, having just escaped from his cell, heading for Carfax Abbey. They see Dracula with Mina in the abbey. When Harker shouts to Mina, Dracula sees them, thinking Renfield had led them there. He strangles Renfield and tosses him down a staircase, and is hunted by Van Helsing and Harker. Dracula is forced to sleep in his coffin, as sunrise has come, and is trapped. Van Helsing prepares a wooden stake while Harker searches for Mina. Dracula moans in pain when Van Helsing impales him, and Mina returns to normal. Harker leaves with her while Van Helsing stays. 'House of Frankenstein' Niemann revives Count Dracula. Dracula seduces Hussmann's Granddaughter-in-law Rita and kills Hussmann himself, but in a subsequent chase, Niemann disposes of Dracula's coffin, causing the vampire to perish in sunlight. 'House of Dracula' A mysterious bat circles the area and turns into Count Dracula. He enters the house and greets its owner, Dr. Franz Edelmann. The count explains to the doctor that he has come to Visaria, under the alias "Baron Latos", to find a cure for his vampirism. Dr. Edelmann agrees to help the count and lets him keep his coffin in the castle's cellar. Together with his assistants, Milizia and the hunchbacked Nina, he has been working on a mysterious plant, the clavaria formosa, with juices that have the ability to reshape bone structure. The count returns that evening, and Edelmann explains to him that he thinks vampirism can be cured by a series of blood transfusions. Dracula agrees to this, and Edelmann uses his own blood for the transfusions. That night, Milizia is playing the piano in the living room, and Dracula appears. Dracula tries to seduce her to become a vampire like him but Milizia brandishes a crucifix before he can bite her. Edelmann interrupts the hypnosis, and explains that he has found strange antibodies in the Count's blood. They decide to have another transfusion the next day. Meanwhile, Nina is following Milizia, who is getting weak because of Dracula's influence. She catches her talking to the Count by a hall mirror and sees that the Count casts no reflection. Meanwhile, Nina warns Edelmann of the count's intentions to make Milizia his undead bride. He prepares for a transfusion that will destroy the vampire and has Dracula come to the lab. During the transfusion, Dracula uses his hypnotic powers to send both Edelmann and Nina to sleep and reverses the flow of the transfusion, sending his own blood into the doctor's veins. When the doctor and his assistant awaken, Dracula is preparing to take Milizia away. They wake up Talbot, and fight Dracula off with a crucifix, who returns to his coffin as the sun is beginning to rise. Edelmann follows him, and drags his opened coffin into a spot of sunlight, and Dracula is destroyed, leaving only his skeleton. 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein' Talbot tries to impart to Wilbur the danger of a shipment to the "McDougal House Of Horrors" (a local wax museum) which purportedly contain the actual bodies of Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi) and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange). However, before he is able, a full moon rises and Talbot becomes The Wolf Man and the call disconnects. Wilbur, thinking the call is just a crank, continues on with his work day. Immediately thereafter, the actual Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) shows up to claim the shipments and, fearing them damaged whenever Wilbur and Chick mishandle them, demands that the crates be delivered in person so his insurance agent can inspect them. When Chick and Wilbur get to McDougal's "House Of Horrors", they open the first crate and find a coffin with "Dracula" inscribed on the front. When Chick leaves to retrieve the second crate, Wilbur witnesses Dracula awaken and tries to get Chick's attention. But when Chick returns with the second crate, Dracula hides just in time to go unnoticed. After Chick leaves again to greet McDougal and the insurance agent, Dracula hypnotizes Wilbur and re-animates Frankenstein's Monster. McDougal and the insurance agent (with Chick in tow) arrive again too late to witness anything. Finding the storage crates empty, McDougal accuses the boys of theft and has them arrested. That night, Dr. Sandra Mornay receives Dracula and the Monster at her island castle. Sandra, a gifted surgeon who has studied Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks, has been posing as Wilbur's girlfriend as part of Dracula's scheme to replace the Monster's brutish brain with a more pliable one — Wilbur's. Wilbur and Chick are bailed out of jail and mistakenly believe Sandra to be their benefactor. It is actually Joan Raymond, who is secretly working for the insurance company that is processing McDougal's claim, and hopes Wilbur will lead her to the missing "exhibits". Meanwhile, Larry Talbot has taken the apartment across the hall from Wilbur and Chick. He has tracked Dracula and the Monster from Europe and knows them to be alive. Talbot asks Chick and Wilbur to help him find and destroy Dracula and the Monster. The next day, Joan Raymond comes to Chick and Wilbur's apartment and feigns love for Wilbur. Wilbur, not expecting the favor but embracing it, invites Joan to the masquerade ball that evening. That night, Wilbur, Chick and Joan go to Sandra's castle to pick her up for the ball. While the ladies powder their noses, Wilbur answers a telephone call from someone wanting to speak to a 'Dr Leighos'. It is Talbot, who informs them that they are in fact in the "House of Dracula". Wilbur reluctantly agrees to search the castle with Chick, and soon stumbles upon an underground passageway, complete with boat and dock. Chick insists they search for Dracula and the Monster in an attempt to prove to Wilbur that they do not really exist. Wilbur experiences a few close calls when he is confronted by the monsters and every time he tries to show them to Chuck they have disappeared. Meanwhile, Joan has discovered Dr. Frankenstein's notebook in Sandra's bureau and Sandra has discovered Joan's insurance company employee I.D. in her purse. After the women re-join the men, a suavely dressed Dr. Leighos, (a.k.a. Dracula) descends the castle stairs and introduces himself to Joan and the boys. Also working at the castle is the naive Prof. Stevens, who questions some of the specialized equipment that has arrived. After Wilbur admits that he was in the basement, Sandra feigns a headache and tells Wilbur and the others that they will have to go to the ball without her. In private, Sandra admits that Stevens' questions, Joan's credentials, and Wilbur's curiosity in the basement have made her nervous enough to put the experiment on hold. Impatient, Dracula asserts his will by hypnotizing her, biting her in the throat, and making her his vampire slave. At the ball, the boys encounter Talbot and McDougal just as Dracula and Sandra rejoin the group. Dracula, when confronted by Talbot, easily deflects accusations that he is "the real thing" by insisting that it's only his costume and he is not actually Dracula. While Dracula takes Joan for a dance, Sandra lures Wilbur to a quiet spot in the woods. Before she can move in and bite him, Chick and Larry approach and she flees. As they search for Joan, Talbot transforms into the Wolf Man and stalks Wilbur. Wilbur escapes, but the Wolf Man finds and injures McDougal. Noting that Chick has brought a wolf mask as his costume to the ball, McDougal concludes that it was Chick who actually attacked him out of revenge. Chick manages to slip away, only to witness Dracula hypnotizing Wilbur. Chick is then also hypnotized and rendered helpless while Dracula and Sandra bring Wilbur and Joan back to the castle. The next morning, Chick and Talbot meet and Talbot tells Chick that he is the Wolf Man. After Chick explains to him that Dracula has taken Wilbur and Joan to the island they agree to work together to rescue them. While Wilbur is being held in a pillory, Sandra finally explains to him the plan to transplant his brain into the Monster. She and Dracula leave him to prepare the Monster for the operation. Chick and Talbot arrive to rescue Wilbur, but in an attempt to escape Dracula hypnotizes Wilbur into coming back. Wilbur who is now strapped to a slab witnesses Dracula giving the Monster electrical boosts in the lab. Just as Sandra prepares to open Wilbur's skull, Talbot and Chick storm in. Talbot struggles with Sandra and casts her aside. Chick knocks out Sandra and runs out of the lab to make Dracula leave so Talbot can save Wilbur. Just as Talbot is about to untie Wilbur, he once again transforms into the Wolf Man. Dracula returns to the lab to find the Wolf Man there and flees, with the Wolf Man giving chase. Chick arrives to untie Wilbur just as the Monster, now at full power, breaks his own restraints and rises from his stretcher. Sandra attempts to order him back, but the Monster defiantly throws her out the lab window to her death. Chick and Wilbur try to escape with the Monster hot on their trail. After trying to fight off the Wolf Man with little success, Dracula attempts to escape and transforms into a bat, but the Wolf Man snares him then grab him and fall down to the sea below .Joan abruptly wakes from her trance, while the boys escape the castle and head to the pier with the Monster in pursuit. Wilbur succeeds in untying the boat, while Stevens and Joan arrive and set the pier ablaze. The Monster turns around and marches into the flames, succumbing as the pier collapses into the water. Just as Chick and Wilbur relax, Wilbur scolds Chick for not believing him. After Chick tells him he will believe him from now on, they hear a disembodied voice and see a cigarette floating in the air. The voice says: "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm the Invisible Man!" The boys jump off the boat and swim away while the Invisible Man lights his cigarette and laughs as the final scene comes to a close. Characteristics Dracula dons a mask of cordiality, he often flies into fits of rage when his plans are interfered with. When the three vampire women who live in his castle attempt to seduce Jonathan Harker, Dracula physically assaults one and ferociously berates them for their insubordination. He then relents and talks to them more kindly, telling them that he does indeed love each of them. Dracula is very passionate about his warrior heritage, emotionally proclaiming his pride to Harker on how the Székely people are infused with the blood of heroes. He does express an interest in the history of the British Empire, speaking admiringly of its people. He has a somewhat primal and predatory worldview; he pities ordinary humans for their revulsion to their darker impulses. Dracula also has a very strong Hungarian Accent largely do to Bela Lugosi being from Hungary and him learning english only for his role in movies. Category:Antagonist Category:Universal Monsters Category:Vampire Category:UMCU Universe